


we'll go together in flight.

by admiral_of_the_red



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And the angels are human, Angels Have Visible Wings, As well as bird characteristics, Autistic Castiel (Supernatural), Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Croatoan Virus, Dean and Sam are angels, F/F, Fallen Angel Sam Winchester, Fluff and Angst, God's A+ Parenting, Hierarchy of Angels, Hurt/Comfort, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Lucifer is creepy and morally questionable, M/M, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Questionable Themes, Temporary Blindness, reverse!verse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-01 19:37:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14527710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/admiral_of_the_red/pseuds/admiral_of_the_red
Summary: It wasn’t the fall that hurt Sam the most.It was the landing, the divine cessation, the conclusion of the descent, and as soon as Sam crashed hazardously into a meshwork of rough substance that bled him and and punctured him and cradled him like the swords of an enemy battalion, all Sam knew was that he hoped to anyone listening that the fall would kill him, God’s deliverance be damned.





	1. inferno

**Author's Note:**

> Hold fast to dreams  
> For if dreams die  
> Life is a broken-winged bird  
> That cannot fly
> 
> Hold fast to dreams  
> For when dreams go  
> Life is a barren field  
> Frozen with snow
> 
> \- Langston Hughes

It wasn’t the fall that hurt Sam the most.

Though, admittedly, taking the plunge from the highest plane to the middle ground was anything but delightful. When he had first descended, utterly a victim to the tenacious grasp of Earth’s gravitational pull, Sam couldn’t hear anything but the shrill wailing of squalls and what sounded like Heaven’s choir up in the distance, singing to him a fading threnody in lament for what was sure to be his ruin, should the hand of God extend him mercy and grant Sam the release of death upon impact.

Ordinarily, Sam would smile at such foolish contemplation, to think that Heaven’s choir would sing for _him_ , a common soldier, but with the ground hurtling towards him at alarming speeds, well, any inopportune mirth Sam could conjure quickly collapsed under the crushing weight of suffocating fear that quite literally stole his breath away.

Whenever Sam dared to open his clenched eyes and steal a quick glance at the thick blanket of clouds below, a heartbeat he’d never had the displeasure of sustaining before sped up in rhythm, the incessant pounding seeming to travel to his ears and almost drown out the wailing of the wind that mourned his passing.

_Almost._

Any attempt at catharsis was rendered null as the wind pervaded a pair of unfamiliar lungs everytime Sam felt the fear overwhelm him and pry open his jaw to release the shriek of terror coiling within him. Every time, Sam ended up gulping an uncomfortable amount of air and choking forcibly until his chest hurt.

After a while, when he’d finally (somewhat) calmed down enough to steady his breathing and organize his thoughts (which comprised of almost nothing but various raw, primal fears at this point), Sam tried to muster a rain drop of rationality within the tempest that was his scrambled brain, trying to think desperately of a way to somehow cushion his fall or at the very least, mitigate the pain upon collision.

Now that Sam (alarmingly) had a heart and lungs and likely many other odd, pulsating human features to worry about, it would be wise to assume whatever pain he could brush off in former circumstances would probably kill him, if the stories were anything to go by.

 _They’re like overgrown rats,_ Dean had once said to him in the tongue of angels when Sam had become curious about the inhabitants of the lower plane, his voice dismissive. _Rats with brittle moral and principle that cower in a small corner of the universe, seeking the light of God’s glory but never seeming to find a way to truly_ see _. Bobby told me that they’re capable of dying from even the laceration of a knife-tip, Sammy, as if their flesh is made of frangible clay._

 _We are fortunate,_ Dean had continued suddenly, uncharacteristically thoughtful, _that our Father has blessed us with eyes, with freedom, with perception, and we are fortunate to be greater than those wingless bastards that scurry blindly in the dark._

It was the last time Dean had spoken to him of blessings with genuine conviction, and Sam often wondered if Dean had lost his faith even sooner. Because of that, his wings must have been the first past of Dean to abandon him.

_Wings._

Sam had almost forgotten the aerial appendages on his back, and felt the shame of his own stupidity warm his face and the back of his neck. For some reason, being in such paralyzing terror dispelled any thought of them from his mind, almost as if his lizard brain wasn’t aware his wings were a part of him in the first place.

It was almost frightening how fast he could feel himself becoming human, psychosomatically and otherwise.

 _Perhaps the Seraphim give the humans too little credit,_ Sam thought offhandedly. _It’s a wonder they’ve survived this long, having to endure the sheer intensity of raw emotion as they do._

Hesitantly, Sam extended the tips of his primaries from where they were clenched to his back, subsequently feeling the wind rush through them like cool water and violently ruffling them into a tizzy that felt both familiar and reassuring.

Slowly, Sam’s mouth quirked into a relieved smile. Really, this wasn’t any different than flying, and though it was much harder to break out of a fall than instigate one, Sam had always been one of the more talented fliers of their garrison, much to Dean’s annoyance.

 _Dean_.

Sam shook his head, _no_ , he couldn’t keep thinking about Dean, especially not now, not when he was in such a dire situation. Thinking was, well, _had been_ , the focal point of his established role, and he couldn’t think without focus. At the moment, Dean deserved no place in Sam’s thoughts, tumultuous as they already were.

_Right, focus._

Taking what he imagined was a deep breath, Sam extended half of his pinions, the air collecting underneath and lifting them until Sam could get a feel of the wind pressure and adjust accordingly.

With the yellow sun in the distance, the blinding light made his normally dull, tawny plumage appear as dazzling as pure gold, and Sam felt a sudden, warm rush of pride that was as foreign to him as a heartbeat. Dean always used to be the flashier one between the two of them, typically grabbing any given opportunity by the lapels to show off his charmingly beige feathers that were dusted with a handsome bronze, all while crooning in an irritatingly husky voice that made all the younger garrison members fall at his feet.

(At least, that was how Dean described it. The _falling at his feet_ part, anyway. Dean’s wings really _were_ practically spectacles of beauty onto themselves. The entire garrison, including Sam, hated and loved them in equal measure, though Sam was reluctant to admit anything more than the former.)

And while the wind still rushed past him and tore savagely at his long hair and clothes, the daunt force had lessened substantially. With his wings extended part-way, it was almost as if Sam was floating downwards gracefully, as if he carried no more weight than the gossamer clouds. For the first time since he had begun the fall, Sam exhibited the routine, dependable level-headedness he was known for not long ago.

The next moment, Sam was on fire.

Peace was quickly laid waste to panic as his entire essense were suddenly engulfed with white-hot flames that danced in every imaginable color. Before his awareness was consumed by the inferno, Sam came to the dangerous conclusion that he must be penetrating the barrier between Heaven and Earth, for every single molecule of his being was set alight with knives of wrath that pierced his body and and teeth of retribution that mauled his skin. Retribution, Sam knew, that was well-deserved, and not destined to be well-received.

On pernicious instinct, the entirety of his once-golden wings were abruptly thrust outwards in a blazing amber line seemingly as long as the dying horizon. The manifestations of Sam’s pride were stretched full-fledged in biblical, burning glory, his body’s last-resort in attempting to intimidate the threat that had caused the sudden spike in fear and adrenaline, and all the while Sam was roaring and choking and shrieking, _the world is ending and I am the catalyst_ , _oh Lord above, please save me IT HURTS SO MUCH—_

Somewhere, somehow, the Lord must have been listening to Sam’s desperate pleas, because for once in Sam’s short, miserable life, the Lord delivered unto him an answer.

With a sickening _crash_ , Sam slammed chest-first into the iron fist of God while the resonant whirring of what could only be demons screamed salvation in his ears. Upon concussion, his human bones turned to slivered matchsticks and his human blood flowed inside-out, sluicing his flesh body like the broiling flood that rocked Noah’s boat and purged the Earth of sinners in God’s merciful name.

Through the flames, Sam caught a glimpse of what hazily appeared to be a glittering wall of pink wings (he had never in his life beheld such a  _loud_ color) and a pair of smoldering eyes that gazed at him from within the confines of transparent darkness and rancid smoke, and that gaze seemed to burn Sam nearly as hot as the fire itself.

And then he was falling again, barreling head-first towards the Earth from a precipitous height with his conflagrant wings limp and pointed towards God (Sam’s final prayer before the ground swallowed him whole), his weary arms grappling at empty air uselessly for the mass of pink wings of what could only belong to another wayward angel sent to break his fall.

With eyes of clouds that rained wet and sweet, Sam blearily observed the peculiar angel barrel off into the opposite direction, it’s strange, metallic hide scintillating in the light of Sam’s fire and the darkness of God’s sun. Peculiar indeed, to exhibit such brightly-colored wings, though, Sam had already forgiven the peculiar angel for forsaking him.

It wasn’t the fall that hurt Sam the most.

It was the landing, the divine cessation, the conclusion of the descent, and as soon as Sam crashed hazardously into a meshwork of rough substance that bled him and and punctured him and cradled him like the swords of an enemy battalion, all Sam knew was that he hoped to anyone listening that the fall would kill him, God’s deliverance be damned.

The mortal ground embraced him with open arms, and Sam was  _saved_. 


	2. detriment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And from that single breath, Sam beheld the vestige of the Messenger, and their aura was as complicated and two-faced as the moon.

Sam was _likely, probably, hopefully_ dead.

It was only logical to assume, given the nature of gravity and those who had the misfortune of being shackled to it. His own fettering was a more recent affair. 

Sam had been to Heaven; he'd been born there, of course, created out of a single atom burst into a thousands sparks that his sire, the Principality John, had sewn together from a collapsing star plucked from the cosmos, but Heaven wasn’t Heaven to Sam like Heaven was to the wingless races, the ones who’s heavens rested underneath an ancient battlefield that armies had trampled both underfoot and underwing for a myriad of millennia, and then some.

To occupy the human part of Heaven that required blissful ignorance of sorrow and rage, of demons and evanescent grace, of terrible things that would cause the psyche to shatter from the grim unfathomability of things not meant to be fathomed, well, that would be heavenly indeed.

And though Sam was most surely dead, where would he end up? If Heaven was Hell to an angel, and if said angel surely deserved a hellish afterlife for living an unhallowed life deemed thus by God’s faithful proxies, wherever would such an angel go?

Well, it didn’t matter, as long as his death eventually came to pass. After so many years of holding his breath and waiting with his life bowed in compliance, Sam could afford to be patient.

The question is; was Sam dead in the light, or alive in the darkness?

§

His first conscious thought comprised of _curiosity_  not yet sharpened into succinct deliberation, but the meaning was clear enough.

Beneath broken bones and scorched flesh, Sam could feel the soft caress of dewy grass that grounded him in their gentle embrace, generously offering a little relief in the cool dew drops that collected atop their tips.

Above him, a breeze caused far-away foliage to surrsuate in a gentle song, a smaller breeze ruffling the surface of his wings and weaving the solace of nature between each individual feather. Though he could not see them, he felt the sensation of both his wings outstretched to their full wingspan like the arms of Christ’s cross as Sam laid quiescent on his back, spread-eagled on the ground like a sinner in the midst of their crucifixion.

The ambiance felt achingly serene, and Sam wanted to lay there forever, or at least until the God became impatient and commanded the ground to swallow him whole.

Desiring a disclosure of his surroundings (be them of a place of the living or the dead), Sam struggled to open his sticky eyelids that were glued unpleasantly to his face, and saw nothing but a thin, red haze that burned his eyes and caused a cool liquid to well and pool at the bottom edges of his eyelids. Overwhelmed by the brightness of the discomfort, Sam clenched his eyes shut and managed to slightly assuage the pain, if only temporarily.

Sam tried again, blinking rapidly in quick succession as the blinding red light that pierced his pupil caused his aching head to increase its aching with more intensity, but other than that, he could see nothing else.

It was obvious to him, then, that further attempting to witness this unknown world via vision wasn't going to work. 

Sam couldn’t see. Why couldn’t he _see_? What was so wrong with him that he would fail where even human infants succeeded? Wasn’t it paramount in the majority of zoetic breeds, an initiation of sorts, for the newborn of the species to open their eyes to take their first look at the strange, new world in which they were now a part of?

Even so, for whatever reason, Sam had the weirdest urge to rub his palm into his closed eyes. Like an itch that desired nothing more than to be sated. 

What a bizarre, illogical, and evidently human inclination.

Using what little strength he had left, Sam tried to lift his hand with the intent of shoving it towards his eyes in a slapdash attempt to rub them, but he was alarmed to discover that his body refused to respond to his mind’s appeal. It was as if Sam was a broken doll, discarded by his owner to lay hapless, helpless, and petrified. 

_Supine in life, supine in death. It was as if Sam haven't been able to see even before he became blind._

He was, however, awarded for his fruitless efforts by sweeping spikes of agony that stabbed his entire body in varying degrees, making the world explode into phosphenes that seared his vision beneath his eyelids; a supernova occurring above an endless void.

_Phosphenes. Colors. Beautiful, wonderful colors._

The part of Sam brain that wasn't screaming marveled at the terrible beauty that seemed to rival the wings of lesser angels, and this conviction had been deduced by a mere glimpse of colors appearing for fractions of a second. If what dwelled behind his eyelids inspired such a sublime experience, well, Sam ached with great fervor to see what laid beyond his current perception.

The omnipresent pain ravaged him, as if a hellhound with a thousand snapping jaws was gnawing on him, making Sam shift between consciousness and unconsciousness precariously. Occasionally, he built up enough energy to cough up the build-up in his hollowing chest, a phlegm of some kind that smelled unpleasantly like old copper, but both his strength and sight remained null.

When Sam eventually came to the conclusion that he would die here, in a world unknown to him with a body he would never learn to use, he succumbed to the dark, content with bitter inevitabilities to lull him to sleep. The fight in him had died when Dean died, anyway, and because his literal god-forsaken life no longer held meaning, he might as well indulge in other equally meaningless things. Like sleep.

Besides, lethargy was a luxury that had been refused to Sam since his inception, and was long since rightly due.

His final thought was a inquiry (Dean used to make fun of Sam for _always thinking so damn much_ ), a short-term inquiry ultimately lost to memory due to its insignificance, and Sam wondered if God had ever once looked down upon him and thought of him as ‘good’.

§

“Hey, bird-kid, wake up,” a voice said sharply, distantly, sounding like the speaker was both out of breath, wounded, and enthralled. It was an odd combination. 

Sam didn’t breathe, nor did he wake. 

“Hey, you alive in there?” The voice said, more softly, an extra note of concern shadowed with impassiveness shining through a weak spot in the voice’s intonation.

A moment passed with no other sounds but with some shuffling and a small _snap!_ A second later, something sharp jabbed him gently in the stomach, and Sam immediately punctuated his fresh consciousness with an inhale of shock. The pain from the jab was slight and short-lived, but it was pain nonetheless, and he had no doubt the voice would be capable of worse things, should Sam provoke it.

Sam continued laying on the ground, his breathing deepening with panic, as he was capable of nothing better. And though he was optically blind to his surroundings, for the first time, his sense of hearing proved more than adequate.

Around him, Sam could detect the peculiar sounds of what he guessed were animals ( _birds_?) bellowing a cacophony of wild chirps and chatter that was somehow both chaotic and pleasantly mellifluous. An airflow wrought from the east washed over him and soothed his burning forehead, causing his various open wounds to stir and cool.

Like the cocoon of a newborn butterfly, the foul sensation of dried, sticky blood wrapped around Sam's body from head to toe, encompassing him until he was ready to break free and spread his angelic wings in flight.

Sam had the sudden urge to sob. 

There was the brief sound of movement as a presence leaned over him, a pair of bare forearms setting onto the ground and brushing the top feathers of Sam's lesser coverts. It was then that a cloying breath that reeked of artificial sweetness breathed hot air into Sam’s face, the embodiment of the voice likely inspecting Sam’s supposed corpse for any sign of life.

 _And from that single breath, Sam beheld the_ _vestige of the Messenger, and their aura was as complicated and two-faced as the moon._

When he felt the touch of two warm, callused fingers cup the underside of his jaw, Sam wasn’t thinking when he lurched forward and used his blessedly long arms and fingers to claw with corybantic fervor at the body that loomed above him, ignoring the lighting bolts of spasms that arched through his broken body and made his head throb in tune with his heart. A grand symphony of pain and misery; a fitting song to plague Sam’s new ensemble of living, sarcous matter.

Sam’s sudden frenzy must have taken the Messenger by surprise as Sam's bent fingers managed to rake down warm flesh and snag bony teeth within a mouth opened in shock. He listened anxiously to the rough movement of a body scrambling backwards as the Messenger shouted “Ow, _fuck!"_ , hissing and cursing like an ornery snake. It was slightly reassuring to know that Sam was capable of implementing damage, though the price of such a discovery was a sharp, prickling pain that caused his lungs to heave.

The Messenger spoke again, though this time from a few feet away, and this made Sam feel a little better about his situation. 

“Heh, okay, so I know you’re definitely not dead, then. That really hurt, you muttonhead,” the Messenger chuckled, sounding more amused than what Sam thought was appropriate given the circumstance. He wasn’t sure how to properly respond, if it was indeed proper to respond at all, so Sam decided just to simply not to, resolving instead to lay limp and look as pathetic as possible so that the Messenger would hopefully leave him alone.

But it would seem that God has cursed Sam even beyond the fall.

“You look _reeeaaally_ messed up there, kiddo, and believe me, I’ve seen my fair share of _messed up,_ ” the Messenger mused, stretching out the vowels in a dramatic way that grated on Sam’s eardrum. “How ‘bout I get you upright, huh? I can make the valiant attempt to patch you up while you tell me just what brand of freak you are, okay?”

Sam didn’t have any time to ponder over the Messenger’s bizarre choice of words because then the Messenger was touching him again, touching his split sides and fractured chest and broken arms with gentle hands and harsh momentum while Sam hissed like he was being dragged by his bastard wings into Hell (though Sam very well might be), and proceeded to thoughtlessly use his curled fingers to tear desperately at the hands that were causing him misery.

_Find the source of misery, then eliminate it, and your flock will have their victory today._

“ _Woah_ , hey, calm _down_ ,” the Messenger chided, their insistent tone as cloy as their breath. A pair of warm, callused hands deftly snatched his larger, pummeling ones and flipped them palm-up, where a pair of twin gashes Sam didn’t remember receiving were exposed to the open air. He was given no time to wretch free before his palms were _crushed_ , the Messenger gouging a hardened thumb into each of Sam’s injured palms with unexpected strength.

Sam, by no means an unintelligent creature, understood the message upon receival, and reluctantly ceased his conniption, though his body in its supine position remained no less agitated. However, the Messenger didn’t let go, and continued pressing mercilessly into Sam's now-bleeding extremities and aroused a red sea that ran in rivers down the deserts of his wrists. Eventually, the pain forced Sam to let out a strangled noise that was between a gasp and a whimper, his unfamiliar voice tinny and tinged with pleading he didn’t yet have the ability to articulate.

Biting his tongue to keep his anguish in check, Sam waited with a pounding heart as the Messenger spoke directly next to his ear, never once relinquishing the pressure, the pain, the _misery_.

“ _Focus_ , kid, you gotta focus" they said. "I know it’s scary, but you have to stop fighting and _listen_ to me,” the Messenger spoke in his ear, low, wrathful, and dangerous; a harsh contrast from the light, joking tone that graced the sweet air a moment ago. Sam barely dared to breathe, but he listened, greatly fearing the consequence of any other action not otherwise requested.

“I don’t know if you’ve realized, with you keeping your peepers closed and all," the Messenger continued, their voice melting back into joviality (wrath to joviality, the transition being far too quick to be genuine), “but you’re absolutely _drenched_ with blood like some poor sap had a hemorrhage and you swam in it, but quite frankly, something tells me that all that sticky crimson is your own stuff.”

When Sam didn’t react, the Messenger slowly released his hands (misery to relief, the transition being far too quick to be genuine), making a point to drag their blunt nails lightly against his forearms as a warning before allowing Sam's wounded palms to drop like forsaken stones.

“Which begs the question, my fine, feathered friend,” the Messenger drawled, speaking to both Sam and the susurrating leaves that whispered in an ancient language above them. Sam tightened his posture like one would a knot on a rope, trying to prepare himself for anything, though; it had taken nothing to shatter him so righteously. Nothing but accusings words wrought from holy black tongues declaring Sam a dissident and a martyr; the angelic equivalent to being consigned to the gallows.

_“How in the name of all that is holy are you still alive?!”_

And from the noose, Sam did fall.

§

“Open your eyes,” requested the Messenger above him, as if were the role of a messenger to make requests and God’s role to courier them. Such an idea was comical. 

Resolutely, Sam kept his eyes firmly shut tight, his face drawing into a frown. He possessed no desire to endure pain when it wasn’t necessary, though, from what’d he’d heard, humans weren’t exactly the best example of a commonsensical race.

“C’mon, kid, you can’t hide in your melon forever. You have to open your eyes _sometime_ ,” the Messenger huffed, and Sam could feel their patience begin to crumble into exasperation. Patience, Sam knew, was not a virtue as the choir preached, but a fickle barrier, and sometimes it was the only thing that kept the wayward from losing their divine grasp on the sky.

Sam had known. _Dean_ had known. And then Dean forgot, forgoing his footing for prideful complacency and allowed the temperate patience to boil and run thin. Accepting the foothold when it was offered was never either of their strong suits, anyway.

The Messenger sighed heavily, and it was clear that Sam was being irritating.

“I’m going to touch you again, so don’t spaz out,” the Messenger informed him, though it sounded more like an exacerbating statement than one meant to reassure. Though, it wasn’t as if Sam could particularly do anything about it, anyway.

There was the sound of another gradual movement as the Messenger sat back on their haunches, their shins brushing Sam’s rightward secondaries. Gently, the Messenger gathered both of Sam’s imbrued wrists in one hand while Sam reluctantly allowed the dubious action, though he was one suspicious action away from clawing in every direction he could reach, should the Messenger do anything to harm him. It wasn’t much of a battle plan, but it was all Sam had.

With their other hand, the Messenger lightly placed the pad of their thumb on Sam’s eyelid, shushing Sam when he made a small noise of protest. Without putting pressure on Sam’s eye, the Messenger pushed the eyelid up with surprising carefulness, not stopping until Sam inhaled sharply and forced his eye shut, the stinging pain causing a burning liquid to run down his face in thick, salty rivulets.

The Messenger tsked, their disapproval halfway sympathetic as they thumbed away the rivers that clung to the deep caverns of Sam’s face.

“You gotta endure the pain, bird-kid, ‘else you’ll stay blind,” the Messenger said, mournful amusement painting their words as Sam made rapid blinking motions in quick succession without opening his eyes, trying in vain to chase away the irritation.

“Whatever crap that’s lodged in your eyes isn’t going to flush itself out, otherwise it would have by now, so it must be something real nasty. I've got a canteen of water,” the Messenger added, moving their hip for emphasis as the sound of swirling liquid reached Sam’s ears, “and I might as well do the deed myself.”

Whatever that meant, Sam didn’t like the sound of it.

For the second time, he felt the pad of a thumb place itself on his eyelid and Sam tensed up like a bowstring, not sure whether to fight and risk further injury. The Messenger hadn't technically harmed him yet, only awakened pain that was there anyway, reposing amidst Sam’s unshackled blood and seared wings and coiling around his broken bones like the serpent of Eden. If the relief of repentment was the forbidden fruit, then Sam was certain that turning back now was a sin bound to scourge the Earth with strife and consequence.

Wordlessly, Sam slightly inclined his head with the intent of affirmation, a universal sign of sanction that exceeded the bounds of space and species and somehow, he knew that the Messenger understood.

Once again, Sam’s eyelid was gradually lifted up. The Messenger forsook efficiency for tenderness and allowed Sam the luxury of adapting to the pain, something Sam thought unnecessary, but he said nothing.

A long minute later, Sam’s eyelid had managed to be cracked halfway, and the burning liquid ran profusely down his cheeks while his breathing became heavily labored, but a sliver of light shone through the haze, despite the nebulous misery. A sure omen of hope.

Finally, after a long minute, Sam’s eye was held open completely. A kaleidoscope of red patches and opaque sunlight shone into his lens while the Messenger whistled lowly, and Sam could feel them do a double take by the way their hands readjusted slightly with repulsion.

That’s was Sam was, what he’d become. _Repulsive_.

“Why the hell is your eyeball covered with blood like some kind of sick chocolate truffle?” The Messenger sputtered, their murky silhouette shifting while Sam blearily tracked the movement. In the distance, Sam could barely discern traces of rich green and mottled brown through the haze of ugly red, and somehow, Sam knew that it was beautiful.

“Okay, even _I_ have to admit that’s kind of gross, and I’m like, the king of gross shit,” the Messenger enthused, sounding more like they were impressed rather than disgusted. Sam wondered what kind of ghastly appearance his optics had to garner such a diametric, illogical reaction.

“This is going to hurt like a bitch, so brace yourself, bird-kid,” the Messenger cheerfully informed him, as if Sam wasn’t already embracing the bite of agony, as if every joint and muscle of his flesh body wasn’t already stretched and tightened to its physical limit in order to brace for a barrage from a potential enemy residing inches away. Though, what kind of enemy warns their adversary of when they will deliver a blow?

Lately, he’s been rather reckless with his life now that it's his own to be reckless with, and Sam would laugh at such a notion if he didn’t already feel like dying.

There was the plastic, uneven sound of a cap being unscrewed from a canteen accompanied by the sloshing of liquid, and Sam closed his mouth and held his breath, his eye open and still. Dead, but alive. Watching, but unseeing. 

“I’m sorry in advance, if it eases your heart any,” the Messenger tells him (the apology would seem almost regretful, if Sam didn’t already know better), and then the hand of mercy poured a burning flow of misery upon Sam’s expectant face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Facts:  
> \- "The Messenger" is Gabriel, if anyone's confused.  
> \- Sam has a lot of bad memories of Heaven, and I'll explain more in depth in future chapters.  
> \- I have no idea what I'm doing, but I hope you like everything so far :)

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic, so I'm sorry if it's absolute garbage. More chapters to come :>


End file.
